Four Years Pre-Snap.
Bucharest, Romania.
Stillness. Quietness. Blanketing calm.
But not peace. Never peace.
Not when every. little. thing. sent his paranoid mind into overdrive.
What was that...?
An explosion...?
A gunshot…?
A door being forced open…? Did they find me…?
Or just a car backfiring…?
The latter was most likely. Then again, when one intentionally places themselves in one of the most black-listed neighbourhoods of Bucharest in a bid to remain undetected, the formers are not so unlikely either.
The dull glow of a single, grimy lightbulb, a bare fixture, in the bathroom flickered through the crack in the door. He purposefully kept it on and kept the door ajar for three purposes. The first remained a habit from when he initially moved in, to help him find his way in the dark. The second held another practical, if sad, purpose: One less thing to do as he scrambled for the bathroom; hand clamped over his mouth after a nightmare. The third… The third stemmed from nothing but consolation.
How long had he been kept in the dark? How long had it been used to control him; like a blanket thrown over a bird's cage to keep it quiet? The bulb did not cast far or bright, but it represented a scarce semblance of independence: That he could get up and turn on or off the light if he wanted to. To a lesser degree, it prevented a panic attack when he opened his eyes and was able to register his voluntary (if grotty) surroundings as his own and not that of a Hydra lab.
Great. He thought, lying there on his side and staring blearily at the shadow of mould spreading across the ceiling by the kitchen window. Now, I gotta get a Goddamn lightbulb.
Aside from the discovery of his previous self, James Buchanan Barnes circled back to the same thing every time: Keeping a low profile. Mixing as little as humanly possible. Safety through isolation. Re-employing the "ghost" to tread through the streets of Bucharest undetected. If they couldn't see him, they couldn't take him. No matter how lonely it proved to be.
Despite the utterly treacherous state of the apartment (right from when he moved in and gradually worsening as the weeks went on), Bucky tended to interact with his landlord to the absolute minimum. He paid his (meagre) rent on time, pushing it under the appropriate door to avoid conversation, fixed what he could on his own and looked the other way when his neighbours (comprising mostly of drug dealers, drug addicts and prostitutes) went about their unsavoury business. And, of course, to a former assassin, there is a certain attraction of residing where law enforcement unofficially refused to tread.
The faucet dripped, and Bucky sighed again.
I should probably fix that too. How, he wasn't sure, but he'd try. God knows, if I'd made it back from Europe in one piece, I could'a been a plumber. With the arm or without it.
Hopefully, it would not involve buying tools or imposing himself on someone to borrow them. It was, after all, one of the dual reasons for renting such a hellhole in the first place: The conservation of his sorely lacking funds. Living in one of the most run-down, undesirable places in the city equates to cheap rent which meant stretching his budget and keeping a (leaking) roof over his head until it was time to move on. Or he was kicked out for not being able to make rent anymore, whichever came first.
In that vein, Bucky found himself shopping as cheaply as possible; keeping his luxuries a scarcity.
His clothes came from flea markets; second hand but clean and satisfactory in their condition. His groceries tended to come from competitively priced market stalls (namely the old woman he bought his plums from, Bucky liked her) and special offers in the supermarkets; buy one, get one free, 100% extra free, and coupons. Who doesn't like coupons? If there was one thing the titanium weapon/appendage was not made for, it was holding a flyer steady while he diligently and ever so carefully tore the coupon out; painstakingly edging the tear along in a bid not to damage the money saver.
Shoplifting was not, unfortunately, unheard of for the absconded Winter Soldier. He resorted to it as little as he could but sometimes, no other option presented itself. He tried to reconcile it by doing it as little as possible and with cheaper items; slipping them into a bag of things he had already lawfully purchased. Cameras were of no consequence, not when he spent so long mastering their blind spots and where they typically tended to be. His acute senses also pre-warned him when a security guard had taken interest.
The irony was not lost either that, should he be caught and arrested, it would be for something as trivial as a packet of meat or cheese (or a measly candy bar to comfort him as only candy can) and not atrocity upon atrocity upon atrocity over fifty years. One less thing to highlight himself was always welcome but not always avoidable.
What time is it…?
4.37 am.
Should I get up? Go for a run? Risk getting mugged? Or… attempted mugged? Nothin' to take… And I don't want to draw attention to myself for beating the crap outta someone…
Shifting off the solidness of his arm onto his back, the temperature of it had aligned with the rest of his body from being wedged under his torso; had it been flesh, it might have prickled with pins and needles.
Library doesn't open for another four hours… Get up…? Or try and sleep again…? Cup'a coffee..? Is there any bread left..? God, what I wouldn't give for a PB&J…. Slightly grilled, kinda melting…
Crossing the organic arm over his stomach to quell (or at least muffle) the growl the mere thought of a PB&J prompted, Bucky shuffled back onto his side where his gaze met the wall; the peeling, discoloured wall.
Was it another nightmare…? Did that wake me? Or was it the… car?
The snatches were brief, random, disorientating; taken from here, there and everywhere like flashes of memory sewn into a grim patchwork quilt. Mild, it seemed, as evidenced by not being crouched over the toilet or drenched in sweat as some of the more disturbing examples tended to do.
Y'know what…? Screw this. I'm goin' back to sleep.
There's nothing quite like a bright, airy city park on a warm sunny day. Particularly when your last fifty-plus years have been spent (involuntarily) in a cold, damp bunker of some description. It meant that, even with the baseball cap, James Buchanan Barnes loved nothing more than the sun on his face; it felt like freedom, something he would carry with him sooner than he realized to true paradise.
A bottle of water (refilled umpteen times from a drinking fountain, the label fading with each top-up) perched placidly on the bench beside him, the ring of either condensation or leakage on the bottom causing a stain on the stack of notebooks that elevated it.
While the park, in all its sun-drenched glory, took first place as one of his favourite places to look over his notes and jot down anything else that came to his jogging mind, it also (unfortunately) had its downsides.
People.
I know what you're thinking and yes, absolutely, a park (at lunchtime, in the good weather) tends to attract people and with people comes the potential to be noticed and recognized. The baseball cap and his closed-off body language and demeanour had protected him from the odd good-natured attempt of random strangers initiating conversation so far but that wasn't why he watched from his favourite bench.
People watching had become a forlorn pastime for Bucky; people of all shapes, sizes, ages and walks of life. The businessperson in their suit with a coffee in one hand and their cell phone in the other… they had a job from which they earned a somewhat (he assumed) decent living with the luxuries to accompany it. The group of college-aged youngsters that passed through, an iced beverage and rucksack each… They not only had an education that the ex-Winter Soldier (in his Brooklyn days, at least) could only have dreamt of, but they also had the camaraderie to get each other through it; something Bucky purposely kept himself without.
Well-paying jobs and unattainable education aside, they were not what cut the former "Asset" the deepest. At least the businessperson and the college students moved quickly and out of Bucky's sight without their oblivious effect stinging for too long. However, the leisurely and unavoidably slow amble of an elderly couple, wrinkled hand in wrinkled hand, held his morose attention as they passed; perhaps granting himself a distracted sip from the water bottle to limit the dejected pain. Not only had they gotten old, but they had also done so together. They had found love within each other, weathered life's challenges together, perhaps even raised children. Bucky, bitter-sweet each time he saw them, had resigned himself never to having that.
Speaking of raising children…
No sooner had the elderly couple passed, making for a pretzel stand, and Bucky could draw an emotional breath, did a familiar family cross his path. If the aged lovers didn't force him into a hopeless swallow, the young family of four would.
When he noticed them first, a few months previous, there had only been three. Mom. Dad. Toddler son. Now… Having watched the bump grow from an out-in-the-cold distance, it seemed their family had grown by one; the new arrival clutched guardingly close to his (or her, Bucky couldn't tell) father's chest in a supportive sling.
One could argue (certainly from where James sat) that the mother, who held her young son by the hand, had a more trying job in trying to wrangle the wayward toddler; everything snatching his age-related wonderment and enthusiasm. Sometimes, the doleful stranger on the park bench whose reciprocating half-wave would be accompanied by a soft, sad grimace caught his attention.
That's another thing I'm never gonna have… I'd be too dangerous to be around a kid. And I don't think I'd find someone stupid or crazy enough to have one with me. If I could even bring myself to look…
The mother's exemplary parental patience appeared to include (and perhaps encourage) interaction and all around a good nature towards strangers; teaching him to be wary but kind and cheerful. To that end, she vigilantly scoped the park to eye those her young son communicated with and monitored their reactions; Bucky, evidenced by the appreciative nod and smile for his indulgence, did not pose a threat. Christ, if only she knew.
The park and its protective busyness began to empty with the waning lunch hour; prompting the temporary occupants to return to their offices and classrooms. That in turn suggested to Bucky that he too should make himself scarce; standing out in an empty park, without the cover of other patrons absorbed in their own lunchtime, did not appeal to him.
A job...
An education…
Friends…
A partner…
A family…
It seemed hopeless to Bucky just then, perched on that park bench and trying to decide if he could continue to subsist on free water refills until dinner time, that he would ever have any of those things in any scant capacity.
However, James Buchanan Barnes could not have known that all he had to do was wait. Wait a few months and the sun would shine on his face for little more than a day here or a day there. Wait and he could go outside without hiding in crowds and a baseball cap. Wait and a job (with the accompanying education trickling steadily) would be handed to him. Wait and his beloved partner, a little vet to die for, would pull up in a beat-up old jeep; asking if he knew about goat midwifery.
Sure, he would have to tangle with the Joint Counter-Terrorism Task Force, German Special Forces, Helmut Zemo, the King of Wakanda and half the Avengers first… he'd done it all before. Maybe not with those particular adversaries but Bucky was no stranger to a punch-up.
If he waited, James Barnes would have all the things that the Bucharest park dangled unwittingly under his nose; enticing and tantalizing him to a near-cripplingly forsaken husk.
If only for a little while.